Data processing units and systems, referred to herein broadly as electronics, have become a fixture in almost all hospitals or other patient care facilities, specifically in patient rooms, for the entry and retrieval of electronic information relating to an individual patient's care, treatment and/or current condition. In addition, with the rapid adoption of telepresence video conferencing technology as a part of patient care, electronics relating to said conferencing systems are also now common in patient rooms. As such, it is common for various disparate electronic systems to be installed and/or integrated into patient rooms.
The installation and/or mounting of electronics in hospital and other patient care rooms is often problematic. Due to the limited space found in most hospital and other patient care rooms, electronics must be mounted and/or installed in close proximity to the patient and to other sensitive medical equipment. The hospital or patient care facility has a responsibility to ensure that the installed and/or mounted electronics pose no risk to patients and that such electronics do not interfere with other items or with any sensitive medical equipment located in the hospital or patient care room(s).
Due to these risks, electronics used in close proximity to a patient, heretofore, must be certified as safe for the “patient-care vicinity” or otherwise certified as “medical grade” electronics. Medical grade electronics must meet certain certification standards published and/or maintained by organizations that include, without limitation, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). Some of the relevant standards include, without limitation, IEC 60601-1, UL-2601-1, and ANSI/AAMI ES 6060101, which set general standards for electrical shock risk, electromagnetic compatibility, electromagnetic interference (“EMI”), mechanical hazards and ignition hazards. Generally, any piece of electronics in close proximity to a patient must meet at least the certification standards set forth in IEC 60601-1, UL 2601-1 and/or ANSI/AAMI ES 60601-1, Failure by a hospital or other patient care facility to use medical grade electronics in a patient's proximity may create a safety risk and can lead to fines and/or loss of accreditation.
Medical grade electronics are generally more expensive than typical “consumer grade” electronics, which do not meet the aforementioned certification standards. Due to this fact, hospitals and other patient care facilities are forced to expend large sums of money to purchase medical grade electronics for use in patient care. In addition, due in part to the lengthy certification process that medical grade electronics are required to undergo, the hardware and/or software of medical grade electronics is often outdated as compared to consumer grade electronics. Thus, in terms of computing performance, consumer grade electronics are often superior to more expensive medical grade electronics.
Moreover, due to the small size of many hospital and other patient care rooms, medical equipment, including electronics, must often be wall mounted to conserve space. Wall mounting of electronics is often achieved via the housing of the subject electronics in an enclosure. While wall mounting electronics in an enclosure can save valuable floor space, it creates additional challenges such as how to create mounting means and how to provide for accessibility to the housed electronics for repair. In addition, it is not always desirable that the wall mounting of electronics be permanent. Instead, a removable wall mount enclosure may be necessary or desirable.
Therefore, a need exists for an enclosure that can be placed in a patient room at a hospital or other patient care facility, that can hold a selected consumer grade electronics device, and which shields a patient and any electronic or mechanical devices in the patient room from the external risks associated with the consumer grade electronics device. Specifically, there is a need for such an enclosure constructed to ensure that when a consumer grade electronics device is housed therein, the enclosure meets all applicable safety certifications and standards for use of electronic devices in close proximity to a patient. There is a further need for such an enclosure to be mountable on a wall of a patient's room. In addition, a need further exists for an enclosure to provide ready access to the housed electronic device without the need to demount or disassemble the enclosure.